John Foreman in his Fighter Command War Diaries, Vol. 3, p. 252, mentions the loss of two Spitfires of 331 Sqn. in combat with JG 1 off Westhhofd. A third Spitfire was a write off as Cat. E on this day ( although this a/c was later repaired and re-entered service ).

My question is: Can anybody confirm the two total losses of 331 Sqn. and can provide me with both the serial nos. of the two a/c and the names of the pilots ? Were they really lost in combat with JG 1 while escorting Mitchells on their mission to targets in Holland ?

Jochen, I think you misread Foreman's book. 331 Sqn had only one loss (Spitfire IX BS144 hit and returned to base one fire, CAt C then B, Lt. Svein Heglund safe) while the Germans claimed 3 kills. The claim/loss table for the day shows only one loss (Cat E) for the squadron.

Situation is complicated by the fact that St Omer and Ghent were raided at the same time. From German claims it seems to me that JG 26 opposed the St Omer raid while JG 1 intercepted the Holland raid. But it may be not so simple.

According to Tony Wood (to quote him: "These lists are my interpretations of "Allied Combats & Casualties" which were taken from the official RAF Fighter Command records held at PRO/Kew. The Lists or Tables give every Mission flown by Fighter Command, and later USAAF Fighter Command, from the end of the Battle of Britain [1.11.40] to the eve of the Invasion of Normandy [5.6.44] at present"), the RAF side of the show was following:

as Laurent Rizzotti quite rightly put it, I have misread the table in John Foreman's FC War Diary; what I took for Spitfire losses were in fact claims of 331 Sqn. Thank you for taking your time to set matters straight and especially to you, Wim de Meester, for your elaborate reply. I'll try my best to read my sources more thoroughly before asking you again for your assistance.

Jochen
If you need to verify some Spitfire losses, it is not a problem, drop a line. Not at the moment, however, as we(!) are trying to make a Spitfire flyable to get her back to Britain. We have a perfect photo documentation of how to replace CSU oil pipes.